[BETA]Power Outage Manager

@thebearmay you could consider leveraging the RM API and invoke the actions on the selected rules. This would open up endless possibilities vs having tons of logic built into your app.

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The last voltage value when powered persists. Nevermind. Request withdrawn. Sorry for the detour.

Once the device loses power, it presumably can’t report anything…

v0.2.0 Changes

  • Adds capability to select devices to turn off when outage detected
  • Adds capability to select devices to turn on when power is restored
    • Defaults to the devices selected for outage
    • Has option to split into 2 lists with different delays to allow staggered power up
  • Adds options to run RM Rules at outage or power restoration

@lcw731 @ritchierich

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As far as battery condition goes, I wonder if I could plug a sensor with a USB power option, like a Zooz motion, into a TalentCell that has USB output, and get something meaningful out of it. I have both outside and inside versions, and recall that they behave differently when changing parameters.

Any other suggestions for monitoring backup battery charge level? There has to be something off the shelf for this, you'd think.

edit: I started another topic after I thought of it, but ideally, I suppose, it'd be nice if the voltage the hub is seeing could be accessed, similarly to temperature.

edit2: I think the Zen29 Outdoor Motion Detector will work whereas the ZSE18 won't. The 29's usb power supply powers a frame that replaces the 3-battery holder. Might not report in a timely manner though.

If you can afford a power wall. Lol. Maybe pick up an apc smart ups smtxxxx with a net card and use my smart ups driver to detect power outage and monitor ups battery level to shut down the hub cleanly when it gets low.

I was able to get the ZSE29 to wake up and report battery status every 10 minutes. I plugged it into the TalentCell, which still has all lights showing despite powering the Hub since 9 last night. I'm going to let it run down and see what the battery reporting does. Not too neat, for sure. There has to be a better way.

On a side note, we had a power outage earlier today, and starting and stopping a couple of generators, several power cuts and restores-the stuff of likely db corruption-that is, without battery backup. :slight_smile:

Down to three of 4 leds on the TalentCell.

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Well, it's been 36 hours on the TalentCell battery so far, with 15 of them on hub alone and the rest including the ZSE29 motion sensor.

Still at 3 of 4 leds, and the ZSE29 is still showing 100% battery.

After a hub on battery power such as this shuts down gracefully, how do you bring it back unattended?

First, with a shutdown command, in the interest of preserving the db integrity, the red light (and z-wave radio, at the least) is still on, so it's not totally off. You'd have to figure out a way to shut off battery power to the hub totally, if you wanted to restart it remotely. Some type of local, non-cloud timer, independent of the hub, since that will be shut down.

Unless maybe the battery died totally with the light on? Would any harm be caused to the hub in this shutdown mode by the battery dying a slow death?

Maybe the USB-C being designed will take care of this. I haven't looked. Perhaps a real UPS? Maybe. But the TalentCell battery I'm using is doing really well, so far. Under normal operation, I'll probably be using generators that'll keep it charged up anyway.

Interesting to think about. It's only during a real power outage that you can tell if things work, or don't.

Even apart from db corruption, I think, subjectively, things resume better after an outage if hub power isn't interrupted. I could be wrong though.

If the hub is shutdown and then loses power there should be no risk of database corruption as the hub will not be processing anything at that point.

I know that, but the red light on the hub is still on, meaning, at a minimum, z-wave radio is still on. Would a slowly dying battery potentially cause any damage? The hub can't be restarted unless power is completely cut off and restored.

Already have the Powerwall, came with the Solar system. Just looking to maximize reserve time if the power goes out. We don't get a lot of outages here, but usually 2-3 that will last several hours. and typically 1 year that last more than 10 hours. Before you ask, North Texas, the far NW side of the DFW Metroplex.

Radio is still powered but isn’t doing anything but sitting there, so a dying battery isn’t going to hurt anything

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I use kasa /tplink switches to reboot it after a power outage. Simply toggle it off and back on and the hub will boot up even after it was cleanly shutdown. I tested a bunch of wifi plugs and many did not remember the last state. The kasa does and when power is restored reboots to last state. In addition you can set a schedule to either turn off ( to weekly reboot something for instance), or turn on in case someone turns it off or the reboot fails for some reason. The schedules are local and run even if the switch drops off wifi.

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I'm not sure how I would set that up. How can the Kasa 120v. plug be incorporated when the hub is powered from the battery? Maybe you are talking about a commercial UPS? Plus, I didn't know the Kasa plugs could keep a schedule even without local wifi-that's pretty cool.

ya sorry probably cant if the talent outputs usb directly and not 120.. not sure what you can do.. kind of defeats the purpose.. as i said i use apc ups and they output 120 and then i plug the kasa into that and then the hubitat adapter into the kasa..

maybe something like this with the correct usb a/b to usb c adapter

obviously you want a wifi one, as having a zigbee or zwave on the hub doesnt help lol.

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The type a usb plug might not provide enough juice for the type c powered hub.

says 2.5a but 1.0 a for charging.. there is no way the hub uses more than that..

looked it up, hubitat adapters are 1.0a so you should be fine

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Hi, where can I get the link to install the app?

Available through HPM or at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thebearmay/hubitat/main/apps/powOutMgr.groovy

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